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8/27/2011

Hour Of The Assassin (1987)

Hour Of The Assassin (1987)-* *

Directed by: Luis Llosa

Starring: Erik Estrada, Francisco Giraldo, and Robert Vaughn

Martin Fierro (Estrada) is hired
by some generals to assassinate the new president of the South American
country of San Pedro, Roberto Villaverde (Giraldo). They convince him to
do this by playing to his sympathies regarding his father, a man
assassinated by these very same generals, although Fierro doesn’t know
that. According to them, his father was “leftist scum” (which they say
behind Fierro’s back, of course). Fierro has his work cut out for him,
except for one thing: ex-CIA operative Sam Merrick (Vaughn), who is
tracking Fierro and intent on stopping the assassination. It’s a race
against time - who will come out victorious?

It’s yet another “El
Presidente” movie - A South America-set film about rebels in the
streets versus the political establishment. This plotline was more
prevalent in video
stores than you might think - Cocaine Wars (1985), McBain (1991), Perfect Target (1997) and
the latest example, The Expendables (2010). The plot is extremely simple - it’s
Vaughn chasing Estrada for over 90 minutes - so after an exciting
opening chase sequence and the setup of the plot, the middle section
drags heavily. It’s natural that this would happen with such minimal
plot. A few interestingly-lit sequences are not enough to solve this
problem.

The movie does deliver some standard chases and
shooting, but the roles for both Estrada and Vaughn are a little
different than usual. The tone is downbeat, serious and low-key. Estrada
doesn’t play bad-guy assassin roles too often, and how often do you see “Control 5” himself, Robert Vaughn, at least at the age he was when he
shot this movie, running around South America playing the action star?
Of course, Vaughn’s “hair” is odd and is constantly changing from scene
to scene, and, like Chris Lemmon in
Firehead (1991), whose catchphrase was the ever-present “Jesus Christ!”, here
Robert Vaughn utters the word “Bastard!” every other scene.

This
was a Corman production, released in the U.S. in the always cool MGM/UA
big-box. Director Luis Llosa shot the film in his native Peru and there
are some nice locations. He later had some mainstream hits with
Anaconda (1997), the Stallone vehicle The Specialist (1994) and the
classic Tom Berenger Sniper (1993). He’s also responsible for the Corman
David Carradine film Crime Zone (1989). This was his first cinematic
foray, and it’s not bad, it’s just standard, and even tends toward
boring at times.

This is the perfect example of video store
shelf-filler that, yes, has cool box art and all, but will underwhelm
you. It makes true gems like Deadly Prey (1987) stand out all the more.